On the heels of coming out the victor in the battle called “Who’s More Pathetic Post-Breakup?,” Cardi B shows us that you can be a mom and still maintain stripper roots (breastfeeding in a stripper-oriented video is at least slightly more vanguard than wearing Versace and sitting idly while doing it) in the accompanying video for her latest single, “Money.”
As the doors open to some sort of palatial mansion that looks like it might be trying to steal its aesthetic from the Doria Pamphilj gallery, a stripper pulling her acrobatic moves in mid-air shows us that this isn’t your typical stodgy, moneyed space. Cardi’s “all bad” bitches dressed to the nines (despite having no shirts on) are a reflection of her own taste as she asserts, “Ten different looks and my looks all kill.” This is followed by a shot of her in a glass encasement among some of her most memorable ensembles so far, including one from the “Be Careful” video, as well as the checkered number from her debut record.
Back and forth shots to her and her army of lackeys in black and white couture as though they’re judgmentally observing a day at the races contrast ironically against nighttime inspired backdrops of Cardi and others taking their turns at the pole.
From her moves dressed in a wannabe Beyoncé in the “Apeshit” video look while in a vault to her nude piano playing (does this bitch even play the piano?–surely no one cares so long as she’s naked), it’s very obvious that stripping still lives very much within Cardi, and will forever need a way to get out. To be expressed. Especially whilst she’s in between dicks at the moment. Directed by one of her go-tos for art direction, Jora Frantzis (who shot the cover for Invasion of Privacy), the video is Cardi’s most sumptuous yet, filled with vibrant color palettes befitting a larger budget, which she has most definitely garnered in the past year in between various scuffles with Nicki Minaj.
Even name checking Atlanta strip club Follie’s (as opposed to Angels, the one she went to earlier this year to settle yet another beef with someone she felt was getting too close to Offset when we all know it was the latter initiating the contact), Cardi B pays both auditory and visual homage left and right to the very activity that made her the star she is today–for what better source of rap inspiration is there than the goings-on of a strip club?
As the scenes shift between an old school in decadence bank, complete with counting machines and guns shooting out money as an old white man mouths, “Money,” Cardi herself takes on the part of high-rolling observer from her perch in front of the stripper’s stage. Wearing a blazer and oversized hat, she watches with mild interest as someone else does what she once had to. Except it would appear she doesn’t think they’re capable of topping her moves, herself taking to the stage to work and twerk for the “cheese for her egg”–though thankfully she never had to worry about supporting a baby while still on a stripper’s “salary” (listen to City High’s “What Would You Do?” or Clean Bandit’s “Rockabye” for proof of financial insufficiency). In fact, the almost naturalness Cardi gives to seeing images of so-called debauchery interspersed with ones of her holding her daughter almost makes “Money” more progressive than the lyrics would lead one to believe (“bands in the coupe” repeated ad nauseum as it is). And if Kulture ever does become a stripper (which would seem to be a rite of passage in the Almánzar family), we can perhaps directly trace it to the making of this video.
Still, Cardi affirms you can be both money-obsessed and nurturing by offering, “Nothing in this world I like more than money,” followed by “Nothing in this world I like more than Kulture” toward the end. Because yes, you do sort have to love money to afford a child. Which is one of many reasons money is wasted on the rich.
